Rep. Todd Akin deserves a hasty exit from Senate race

MCTTodd Akin, GOP candidate for U.S. Senate from Missouri, during a victory speech at his campaign party at the Columns Banquet Center in St. Charles, Missouri, on Tuesday, August 7, 2012. He won his party's nomination that night, but pressure is building for him to step aside for a more viable candidate.

The clock may be running out on U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, the Missouri Republican who appalled just about everyone with his statements about rape. His apologies are not winning back the ground he has lost among powerful GOP leaders and advisers. There’s a deathwatch on his candidacy for the U.S. Senate.

It’s a monumental collapse, considering that some polls had him leading incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) in recent weeks. Republicans pinned hopes of winning control of the Senate on this race. Akin ran afoul of GOP efforts to avoid divisive issues such as abortion that might scare aware independents. It’s tricky, given that presidential candidate Mitt Romney has struggled to prove his conservative bona fides, and has been polling poorly with women this election cycle.

Akin’s lit the controversy with his comments on a Sunday news show, elaborating on his opposition to abortion, even in the case of rape.

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare,” he said. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

“Legitimate rape” embodies centuries of “blame the victim” attitudes that treat women as somehow complicit in their rape and sexual assault. No science or medical research supports the idea that a woman’s body shuts down its baby-making capacity during rape. Akin is a six-term congressman and member of the House science committee, so you’d think he’d know better.

Akin found himself buried under a mountain of scorn, ridicule and reproach from both Democrats and Republicans.

“It is beyond comprehension that someone can be so ignorant about the emotional and physical trauma brought on by rape,” said McCaskill.

“Congressman Akin’s comments on rape are insulting, inexcusable and, frankly, wrong,” Romney told the National Review Online. “Like millions of other Americans, we found them to be offensive.”

Akin issued a vague apology at first, but then some Republicans, including Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, called for Akin to drop out of the race. Akin found his voice.

“I made that statement in error. Rape is never legitimate. It is an evil act,” Akin told former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in a radio interview. “I used the wrong words in the wrong way.”

But that fuller apology might not save Akin’s skin.

The news keeps getting worse for Akin. Karl Rove and his powerful super PAC, Crossroads, will no longer support Akin’s bid, leaving him to scramble for dollars on his own. And Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, issued a statement that “over the next 24 hours, Congressman Akin should carefully consider what is best for him, his family, the Republican Party and the values that he cares about and has fought for throughout his career in public service.”